Bricks, Masonry, Asphalt and Concrete - Brick Entry Steps with sagging top slab

Hi all,

Both of my entry steps have an issue where the center slab is sinking towards the house. This in turn is causing a nice and moist environment for termites to feed on the now soft wood. I've had the wood sill replaced and the termites killed/remedied and now need to fix the cause of the problem which is the slab leans towards the house and water runs right to the wood sill plate/door jam framing/etc. Here are the pictures of the sinking slab. (I hope posting links to pictures is okay?)

http://suprnova.serveftp.com:2004/repairs/FrontStepSag.jpg
http://suprnova.serveftp.com:2004/repairs/SideStepSag.jpg

When I bought the house, the gutters were horribly clogged for probably a few years, so tons of water would spill onto the front steps. I'm guessing the constant waterflow undermined whatever is supporting the slab.

As for the side steps, I think part of the problem is the poured concrete slab for the driveway/patio area wasn't leveled properly and water runs right towards the side steps (and also down along my foundation, but that's another issue). Kind of hard to see with all of the clutter, but you can see the general slant of the slab:

http://suprnova.serveftp.com:2004/repairs/ConcreteSlab.JPG


I have two questions (okay, probably a few more than that :-) ). First, what is required to repair something of this nature? I've personally never seen a setup where there's a floating center piece for entry steps so am not sure what's supporting it underneath. I don't want to start a DIY job, tearing it apart and not know what to expect or what tools/supplies/time I'll need. I tried finding at least directions on how to build your own brick/cement block steps, but did not have any luck. I know I'm going to have to knock apart the top pieces to get to the guts.

As for the side step and the slanting driveway/patio area, is it possible to alleviate the water issue without breaking up the concrete/replacing the concrete? Add concrete to fix the level? My asphalt driveway needs to be redone, perhaps have them asphalt over the patio area as well to fix the level?

Any advice is greatly appreciated :-)

Dan

Cannot bring up the photos. - Could be my security.

Dick

No, my ISP blocked port 80 on me again. I pay extra for the priviledge of it and they keep turning it off. Go figure...

Anyway, i changed the links above to be a different port. I connected to them from work and they are now functional. Apologies for that. If it's still an issue, I'll pop them up to imageshack or similar service.

From what I see in the pictures, the brick and limestone look sound. It seems to be just the concrete that's sinking. On something that small, I'd just tear the concrete out, fill as needed with stone, and repour. That is of course after replacing any damaged wood and taking care of other drainage issues.
You could also have it mudjacked, but I don't know if it would be economical on such a small area.
If you tear out and repour, make certain that you cover the limestone with plastic or something so that any splattered or smeared concrete won't stick to the stone.

From what I can gather, I don't think the center piece is actually poured, but rather a giant concrete/limestone tile. I did manage to get one of the side plates off of the one stair and it indeed appears to be just a over-sized tile.

Does anyone have pictures or illustrations of a [de]construction of similar steps?

I would break that section out, fix any wood issues and then repour, making sure that all joints were properly sealed to prevent water infiltration, and making doubly sure that the slope was right and that it was flashed within an inch of it's life.

Perhaps I'm a little thick regarding this. The central slab appears to be more like a tile that can be removed, not poured. Am I correct in my observation?

does anyone have a web location or otherwise for general blueprints for such steps? I don't want to crack these guys open and be surprised as to what materials I need, what may be entailed in repairing the steps, etc. How difficult would it be to tear down the steps completely and rebuild from scratch? I'm assuming the base concrete footers/pad would exist, so it would just be replacing the cinderblock/bricks, correct?

I didn't see one on this site. Is there a doityourself.com or similar guide to building your own concrete/brick/cinderblock entry steps?